Gathering Shows Legislative Woes

The closing minutes of yesterday's Faculty meeting-and the bizarre "convocation" that followed it proved a theory that has been gaining strength since last spring. The Harvard Faculty was not designed to legislate on the floor, as its members clearly demonstrate when ever they face confusing circumstances.

The surrealistic minutes from 6 to 6:15 p. m., last night-the life span of the convocation-did produce one worthwhile result. Those who voted against the anti-war resulution at the Faculty meeting-or at least the 44 of them who bothered to stay for the convocation-got a chance to say what, they personally thought about the war.

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History will be glad to note that 41 of them actually supported the spirit of the resolution, and only three thought it was a bad idea to take even a personal stand against the war. But the gap between the 230 people who opposed the resolution at the Faculty meeting and the 44 who were left at convocation time hints at a few of the convocation's woes.

By the end of the Faculty meeting, the convocation's organizers found themselves clinging to an idea whosetime had suddenly passed. The convocation-the long-planned alternative to a formal Faculty vote on the war resolution-had its Parliamentary legs swept away when the war vote passed.

Still Robert Dorfman chose to lead his crippled child on. As Faculty members were heading for the door at the end of their meeting he announced that the convocation would meet, just as planned.

In fairness, it can be said that the convocation's membership was not stacked along any political lines. A broad range of the Faculty's political spectrum was there. President Pusey and Dean Ford were gone; Dean May and Mrs. Bunting stayed, Five or six of the spokesmen for the anti-war petition were there. So was Harrison C. White, professor of Sociology, who chided the Faculty for glibly accepting arguments against the war. The one common factor binding the participants seemed to be their tardiness in getting out the doors.

Even the long-experienced Pusey has difficulty steering Faculty sessions, and newly-initiated Dorfman had a hard time keeping the convocation going in any coherent manner at all.

Calls for an informal vote on the war resolution-the original purpose of the convocation-came up several times. But they were regularly punctuated by speeches like White's and comments by a group of Faculty members who thought the whole idea was a bad one.

Thomas C. Schelling, professor of Economics, said that the convocation was "a crummy idea." As a more appealing alternative to this "poor and demeaning way" of sensing Faculty opinion, he suggested the convocation planners call another meeting on October 15.

Seymour Martin Lipset-who had been one the original sponsors of the convocation-asked the group to recognize that the 100 people left in the hall were not in any way representative of the Faculty. Another speaker said that "so many people have left that it would be impossible to interpret any action we take. The strategy of the convocation has stumbled to its knees."

The convocation eventually muddled its way through to adjournment. The only obvious casualty was the Faculty's sense that it can fill the New England town meeting role with something approaching reason or order. Despite the titters that ran through the room when the complicated voting plan was explained, the vote served a function and everyone could leave knowing that the bungles wouldn't have any lasting effect.

Unfortunately, signs of the same legislative befuddlements have appeared in Faculty meetings, where the effects last longer and are potentially more disastrous. The strain of crisis-meetings could explain the fiasco of last April's Afro-American Studies resolutions.

Even yesterday, however, much of the political action swung on key blunders. The main question of the day-whether the anti-war vote would come in the meeting or in a recess or convocation-was decided by a margin of one vote, 214-215. At least ten Faculty members said after the meeting that they did not understand what was going on at the time the motion to recess came up.

One of the questions the Fainsod committee has been trying to answer is how the Faculty's cumbersome legislative set-up can cope with the important problems that appear more and more frequently.

The sad paradox of the Fainsod report is that the balky legislative system it will try to fix has so far succeeded in submerging it. The report was supposed to come up yesterday, but it couldn't survive the parliamentary squeeze.

As one Faculty member said on his way out of the Loeb last night. "the report may help, but I don't think we'll ever see it."